Is Creativity the Sole Domain of Humans?

The transition from our current industrial/information age to an augmented and then ultimately an automated society is underway. The role of humans in that society is an often discussed topic, where our right brain characteristics are likely to play a more dominant role. But are those characteristics the sole domain of humans?

Meet an Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist called AIVA that was taught to compose classical music – an emotional art which is usually considered to be a uniquely human quality. Musical pieces composed by this AI are used as soundtracks for film directors, advertising agencies, and even game studios. Oh, and it released its first album called Genesis.

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5 thoughts on “Is Creativity the Sole Domain of Humans?”

I can agree with AI being creative when the output is music which is based in math. However, can AI be creative in other art forms like painting, sculpture, writing, etc.? In this regard I believe humans have the upper hand because the emotive expression displayed in art forms relies more on the creativity of the person – dare I say the soul – than on the functional ability to execute the creation. I do not believe creativity (as defined as an emotive idea) cant be taught.

I agree with AI augmenting humans and look forward to it. I also agree writing articles is a creative endeavor but is not creativity. Can AI write Hamlet? Can AI imagine? Can it look at a blank page and compose a love sonnet to a deceased loved one that brings the reader to tears because he/she feels the void left within the soul of the writer?

Ok, so another segment of the human workforce is headed for unemployment.

Over the long run shifting work from humans to machines should boost productivity and prosperity much as the transition to mechanized agriculture did. But we aren’t going to make it to the long run if we introduce social change faster than it can be accommodated.

As example, will out of work composers become Trump voters? Every mention of Trump should be a reminder to us what the real future might be if we get too caught up in the geez whizz wonder of socially disruptive invention.

I agree with Armando – we have to be very careful of our wordings and interpretations…
Music: Supervised machine learning can very well detect the mathematical based structures and rules within our compositions in classical music. So I would propose, this is rather an easy task for today’s machine learning engineers.
Articles: As far as I know, AIs are writing articles on weather, natural desaster and such recurring and data structured occurrences? If so, this is not a contrast to Armandos argument, but actually exactly the point.
So – the right brain skills are not (yet) in danger 😉

BUT: Very interesting to me here is the team setup of AIVA – a set of organizers/managers, engineers AND a musician – abstracting this from a music composing AI, I think, it may also hint at how science, business and art will fuse into each other in the future in terms of teams – creating something similar to the proposed “ecosystem” for the economy in whole.
What interesting and threatening times we live in…